Mr. Martin Scattergood:

The first school I went to was all about college, college, college. That is what it was geared towards. When the teachers were speaking about that, I thought that I was not going to college and would definitely work with my hands. I could not see myself in college, but I just got on with it. The second school I went to had a much more relaxed atmosphere. The teachers were friendly and geared us up for the workforce, for example, showing us how to write CVs, do interviews, get a job and so on. When I came out of school, I got straight into an apprenticeship. I had to wait two years for there to be enough numbers to run a sheet metalwork class in college on Bolton Street, but it was great when I got in. Funnily, Bolton Street once held a meeting of all the apprentices who were there at the time.

It took place in a big meeting room or hall and all the apprentices sat at the back. The head of the college said there is a stigma around being an apprentice. It was not the teachers who made us feel like that but we were in a college full of other students and we were just the apprentices down the back who were not there for a long time. The head of the college said everybody needs to sit at the front. He made us feel very much at home and told us we were just as entitled as everyone else to be there. As apprentices, people tend to keep the head down and get it done. There is a view that we are not really in college but, in fact, we are.